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Smartphone Apps Helping in the Emergency Room to Make Decisions

Diagnostics & Healthcare News May 2, 2016

The concept of shared decision-making in healthcare is making its way from physician offices into emergency rooms as hospitals look to become more patient-friendly. Mobile apps are helping to accelerate the shift.

A piece in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday examined this trend. “Now, to help patients and families weigh the evidence and compare risks and benefits, hospitals are developing so-called shared decision-making aids tailored to emergency situations,” the Journal said.

The story looked at apps the Mayo Clinic and Nationwide Children’s Hospital have created to assist patients and clinicians in making treatment decisions in the ER.

One, a Mayo app, Chest Pain Choice, was built with input from a patient advisory group. It goes over each patient’s diagnosis, lists treatment options and discusses risks. A paper presented this month at an American College of Cardiology showed that Chest Pain Choice helped reduce unnecessary testing at Mayo, according to the Journal.

Nationwide Children’s, in Columbus, Ohio, has developed an iPad app called the Patient Activation Tool to query young patients and their parents on personal preferences, such as concerns about side effects and the desire to avoid hospitalization. The Journal told the story of a 9-year-old with appendicitis whose family chose antibiotics over immediate surgery.

The child “received intravenous antibiotics in the hospital overnight, went home with an oral prescription and recovered well,” the article said.

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